Cricket: New Zealand to tour Zimbabwe

Justin Vaughan. Photo / Paul Estcourt

New Zealand will resume cricket ties with Zimbabwe next year after talks yesterday between Zimbabwe Sports Minister David Coltart and New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan.

Vaughan said he had positive talks with Coltart in Christchurch.

"The tour by the Black Caps in May 2011 was the principal topic of my discussion with Mr Coltart. However, we are also considering the possibility of other cricketing exchanges, such as the potential for a New Zealand A team to tour Zimbabwe at some stage in the near future," Vaughan said.

Sport and recreation minister Murray McCully had also held a "positive" meeting with Coltart in Wellington this week, Vaughan said.

"It's clear from that meeting that our Government's position is that they would not oppose the Black Caps touring Zimbabwe next year.

"It is important to stress that any tour by New Zealand cricket teams to Zimbabwe would need to be prefaced by full safety and security checks, which are standard practice for New Zealand Cricket."

Coltart, a member of Zimbabwe's transitional inclusive government, said there were no security problems for visiting sportspeople.

Zimbabwe has a lower crime rate than most other African nations, including South Africa, and recently hosted the Sri Lankan and Indian cricket teams, as well as the Brazilian soccer team for a warm-up match before the World Cup.

In March, Vaughan announced the decision not to tour in this month, saying it had met little resistance from Zimbabwe.

The primary reasons for pulling out of the tour were the collapse of Zimbabwe's health system and its generally unstable environment.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to make its test comeback at home against Bangladesh next May, after withdrawing from tests in January 2006.

The team had been left depleted following confrontations between senior players and the Zimbabwe Cricket board.

The ICC agreed Zimbabwe was ready to return to test cricket after implementing the recommendations of a task force which visited in November, 2008.

Chief among them were re-establishing a credible domestic championship, electing an inclusive ZC board, and achieving better results in one-day internationals, Twenty20s and four-day games.

Zimbabwe received test status in 1992, and has won eight of 83 tests.

The New Zealand Government had previously discouraged tours to Zimbabwe because of its poor human rights record, and the lack of what it saw as a democratically elected Government.

The power-sharing government in Zimbabwe is more acceptable to New Zealand.

- NZPA